HR Movements: 02 Jan, 2017

1.

Arvind Usretay joins Willis Towers Watson as director-rewards

Usretay, who was the rewards leader at EY before he joined the global advisory broking and solutions company, has over 15 years of experience. 

Willis Towers Watson recently appointed Arvind Usretay as its director-rewards practice, India. Usretay, who was the rewards leader at EY before he joined the global advisory broking and solutions company, has over 15 years of experience. He joined Willis Towers Watson on 15 December,2016.

Usretay has worked across industries and verticals, such as IT solutions, banking, life insurance and consulting domains and has over five years of experience in leadership roles with P/L management responsibilities. A business management graduate from the ICFAI Business School, Hyderabad, Usretay started his career as an executive at Sify in 2001. He then moved to NIIT as asst manager - business development in 2003, post which he worked with ICICI bank for a year.

In 2005, Usretay moved to Max New York Life as the head - project mangement (Bancassurance & DST). From thereon, he kept moving up the corporate grids as he worked across business roles with DLF Pramerica Life Insurance and Bharti Axa Life Insurance before being appointed as the country business leader at Mercer Consulting in 2011. He worked with Mercer for close to four years before moving to EY in 2015.

2.

Tanuj Kapilashrami, new global head of talent at Standard Chartered

Kapilashrami is one of the very few Indian women in top global HR leadership positions.

The London headquartered Standard Chartered has appointed Tanuj Kapilashrami as their global head of talent. One among the very few Indian women to have reached a top global HR leadership position at a multinational organisation, Kapilashrami also stands a strong chance to become the global HR head.

Kapilashrami, who has been heading human resources for HSBC Europe since January 2014, will join Standard Chartered in March 2017. She previously held the same role at HSBC India. Apart from Kapilashrami, Leena Nair, senior vice-president for leadership and organisation development at Unilever, since December 2015, is another example of an Indian woman reaching a global leadership role in HR.

A graduate from XLRI's year-2000 MBA batch, Kapilashrami, has been able to climb up the corporate HR ladder quite quickly. She has been revered in the industry as a culturally agile professional with a strong understanding of the rapidly evolving global banking ecosystem. Known to be a risk taker among peers in India, she is said to have been very vocal about pursuing women-centric leadership roles. She has reportedly been very successful in keeping people motivated through challenging times.

3.

Coca-Cola India rejigs its senior HR team

Sameer Wadhawan, vice-president, human resources, will now head franchise capability and business transformation. Manu Narang Wadhwa, from American Express, will replace him as head-HR.

Indian businesses are realising that franchisees are an integral part of their system, and that it’s equally important to develop talent for the franchisees as much as for their own organisations.

Maruti Suzuki recently revamped the HR function of its vendors. Now, Coca-Cola India seems to be following a similar strategy. The cola major has created a new function —franchise capability & business transformation. This function will work on building new capabilities and high-calibre talent pool in the company’s franchise bottling system. The importance of this function is evident from the fact that it has got its head-HR, Sameer Wadhawan, to spearhead this function.

Wadhawan has been leading HR and shared services at Coca-Cola India for the last six years. During this period, he has played a significant role in contributing global talent for Coca-Cola from India and South West Asia (SWA).

Wadhawan will take on his new role from January, 2017. He will work closely with Coke’s 15 bottling franchisees in India and South West Asia. The objective is to make these franchisees future ready and enhance their people capability. The Indian and South West Asian regions of Coca-Cola aspire to be the fifth largest market for the Company, globally. The company realises that this cannot be achieved without enhancing the capability of its bottling franchisees.

Wadhawan passed out of XLRI in 1987. In the last 30 years, he has worked with companies, such as Nokia Siemens Networks, Cadence Design Systems India, Hewlett-Packard, Duracell and Ranbaxy Laboratories.

He has managed all aspects of HR — employee relations, recruitment and selection, talent development, as well as compensation and benefits — and that too, across industries including IT, telecom, pharmaceuticals and manufacturing.